Sokhna Magat Diop

Sokhna Magat Diop (* around 1917 ; † 2003 ) was the caliphate of a branch of the Murīdīya brotherhood in Thiès , Senegal for sixty years . She has made a big splash in academia because she is one of the few women to have led an Islamic religious community .

Sokhna Magat Diop was the daughter of the charismatic Murīdīya sheikh Abdulaye Yakhine Diop , who was head of the community in Thiès from 1914, and Tabara Cisse, who came from a distinguished family of scholars of the Mandinka . She received religious training and was married at a young age to Ibra Fall (1855–1930), an important leader of the Muridiyya. She later married Serigne Massamba M'backé, a brother of Amadou Bamba .

When her father Abdulaye, who appeared as Mahdi and messenger of God, died in 1943, there was initially a succession dispute among his supporters. Tabara Cisse, the influential first wife of Abdulaye, got through after some time that Sokhna was recognized as a caliph. Within her community she performed almost all the duties of a caliph, but she never led the prayer. For this, however, she appointed the imams of the mosques of her community and also arranged the marriages of her followers. She also taught Koran to both men and women .

In contrast to her father, who had tried several times to gain the leadership of the Murīdīya, Sokhna Magat Diop submitted to the authority of the Murīd general caliphs in Touba and was recognized by them as a caliph. Together with her supporters in Thiès, Dakar , Mboro and the Banjul region in Gambia , she also raised large sums of money in the 1940s for the construction of the great mosque of Touba . She had a second residence in Touba itself, where the magal festival takes place every year .

Sokhna was venerated by her followers as a wali (“friend of God”) and the bearer of baraka , and she was also credited with knowing the hidden. Especially during the periods of retreat ( ḫalwa ) in her Zawiya in Thiès, in which she prayed, recited the Qasīd of Amadu Bamba and the Furqān book of her father, she is said to have developed her spiritual abilities.

When Sokhna Magat Diop died, the leadership of the Yakhine community passed to two other women, her younger sister Sokhna Seybata Aïdara and her eldest daughter Sokhna Bintou Massamba Mbacké.

literature

• Christian Coulon, Odile Reveyrand-Coulon: L 'Islam au féminin: Sokhna Magat Diop, cheikh de la confrérie Mouride (Sénégal). Bordeaux 1990.
• Christian Coulon: "Women, Islam and baraka" in Donal B. Cruise O'Brien and Chritian Coulon (ed.): Charisma and Brotherhood in African Islam . Oxford 1988. pp. 113-135.
• Kathleen E. Sheldon : "Historical Dictionary Of Women In Sub-Saharan Africa". Lanham 2005, p. 61.

Web links

• Eric Ross: The Iyakhine Temple in Thiès, Senegal, 2011 (with pictures)

supporting documents

1. ↑ See Coulon / Reveyrand. L'Islam au féminin . 1990, p. 12.
2. ↑ See Coulon / Reveyrand. L'Islam au féminin . 1990, p. 14.
3. ↑ See Coulon / Reveyrand. L'Islam au féminin . 1990, p. 16.